This invention relates generally to social networking, and in particular to visualizing the reach of a content item in a social networking system.
Social networking system users become engaged with other social networking system users by sharing photos, real-time status updates, and playing social games. The amount of information gathered from social networking system users is staggering, as large amounts of information in the form of news articles, videos, photos, and game achievements shared with other users of the social networking system may be retained. Certain content posted to a social networking system may become “viral” as users share content with other social networking system users. But conventional social networking systems lack the capability to measure the “virality” of a content item as well as other metrics about content that may be useful for users to understand how their posted content is seen by others within the social networking system. In particular, conventional social networking systems are unable to fully track user interactions with the social networking system.